The Village of Belmont sets plans for school gymnasium

BELMONT -- Village Council made plans to reopen the Belmont Gymnasium for rentals beginning in April and to hold the annual Easter egg hunt and Memorial Day parade and services in the village.

The Belmont Gym, which for years has been a popular site for a variety of gatherings and events and a regular source of income for the village, has been closed for public use since early 2020 due to the coronovirus outbreak.

Village officials have been moving toward reopening the gym and, according to Board of Public Affairs President Ken Davis, a lot of people are inquiring about renting it.

On March 4, voted to advertise to hire a new gym attendant with the idea that council could confirm the hiring at the next council meeting on April 1, but did not rule out calling a special meeting to do so before then.

The motion that passed included advertising to hire part-time help for the upcoming spring and summer mowing and labor seasons as well.

After some discussion, council decided to hold the village Easter egg hunt at 9 a.m. April 3 with Councilwomen Lorie Grob and Beverly Yoe saying that candy and plastic eggs are needed and those wishing to donate can bring them to the village offices in the gym basement on Brown Street by the end of March.

Councilman Derek Cain said members of the local 4-H club had volunteered to fill the eggs for the hunt.

Mayor Ron Wood said Cheryl Skinner of the Tri-State Military Veterans Museum, which is located on Barrister Street in the village, had expressed interest in having the Memorial Day services held there again this year instead of at the cemetery. All agreed and it was decided that the parade would assemble at the former Belmont school grounds and depart there at 10 a.m. May 31.

Belmont Fire Department Lt. and Cemetery Trustee Kaye Hall addressed council, presenting a log book for Belmont Cemetery that she said had been in use at least since 1974.

She noted she had to duct tape it together.

"It's in pretty bad shape and it's not even up to date," she said, showing council that it also was full of Post-It notes but saying that no consistent record keeping had been done for a number of years and that she wanted to see that change.

Hall implored, "It's going to take some time and effort to get this straightened out, but we need to start keeping better care of the cemetery."

She said she had been in contact with a man who makes cemetery record books who would work with her to transfer the usable information from the old book into a new one that would then be used to keep the process organized going forward.

Davis added that Village Service Director Justin Kinney had been working on mapping parts of the cemetery in an effort to get the records straightened out.

In the end, council authorized Hall to move forward with the purchase of the new cemetery log.

Police Chief Andrew Miller announced that the patrol car that was recently donated to Belmont by St. Clairsville is now "100 percent ready to go" with Council President Mike Murphy and other council members expressing their appreciation to Logotek owner Ed Tacosik for putting on the new decals free of charge.

Fiscal Officer Ricky Burkhead announced that he had learned the village's audit would begin on March 15,

Burkhead also reminded council that members need to get back to working on implementing their record retention system, saying they had begun the process in 2019 but that it had "been put on the back burner" like so many things that were disrupted by the coronovirus emergency.

He went on to say that besides bringing them in line with state regulations, doing so would eliminate of a lot of old bills and documents that are taking up space in boxes